Concoctions From Khyber Pass Kitchen Reveal Sense of Ennui

Sometimes wistfully, and sometimes with a touch of real anguish in their voices, local restaurateurs occasionally ask if anyone supposes that San Diego one day will be a “real restaurant town.”

When they say “real restaurant town,” these fellows usually have in mind San Francisco, where casual conversations are likely to center on last night’s dinner and one’s hopes for the upcoming repast. If the truth be told, though, some of these restaurant owners might be devastated were their wishes granted because one given of a “restaurant town” is a demanding public that won’t settle for a ho-hum dinner when a better meal is available down the street.

The ability to choose, then, is one of the requirements for transforming a city filled with restaurants, as San Diego unquestionably is, into a city that offers a great deal of truly good food. Within the last year or two, that day has come ever closer, partly because of the multiplication of ethnic restaurants. Sushi bars are anything but a novelty now, for example, and we actually have at least two good Thai restaurants; these situations allow us to pointedly jab our fingers at sushi chefs and Thai cooks who try to give us less than the best.

New Location Like a Cave

For several years, Khyber Pass was our only Afghan restaurant (the arrival of this Kearny Mesa eatery was in itself a sign of brighter times for San Diego restaurant-goers), and it introduced what can be a very enjoyable cuisine. Like many ethnic establishments, it originally opened in modest premises, but about a year ago moved into larger quarters. These have been transformed into a kind of cavern decorated with Afghan artworks and handicrafts; the place really is cave-like, probably in reference to mountain dwellings in the cliffsides of the region of the Khyber Pass.

The city’s stock of Afghan restaurants doubled in 1986 with the arrival of La Jolla’s Pawinda, however, against whose elegant preparations those at Khyber Pass seem homespun. One senses a bit of tiredness or ennui in the Khyber Pass kitchen, a problem that often arises when cooks make the same dishes day in and day out.

There were few problems with the appetizers, typical snacks of vegetables and pastry-enclosed meats heated with spices and cooled with yogurt. The flat, chewy Afghan bread called nan , however, with which guests scoop up spiced vegetable dips, seemed soggy and not recently from the oven, as if it had been served from the refrigerator or even defrosted.

A soupy preparation called janiama was much like the cucumber-yogurt dishes served from Greece to India, with the difference that in addition to the usual, cooling mint flavoring, it included spicy bits of jalapeno pepper. The borta, a garlic-flavored melange of chopped eggplant and yogurt, similarly featured a pleasing, quite definite heat.

Crisp Turnovers

The sambosay goshti , or crisp turnovers filled with spiced chopped beef (if the name sounds familiar, this is because both it and the pastries are virtually identical to the Indian samosa ) were well enough handled, as was the bulaunee . This flat, rectangular pastry encased a very bland mixture of leek and potato, and was meant to be dunked in a compensatingly pungent cilantro sauce. Soft, long-cooked vegetables, sometimes bland and other times spiced, are quite typical of Afghan food, and quite a number are offered either as side dishes or in combination as an entree plate.

Meals include the classic aush soup, which always surprises first-timers with its fraternal resemblance to Italian minestrone. The broth contains spaghetti, vegetables and kidney beans--all musts for a real minestrone--but takes on its own character by also including a spoonful of yogurt, which one stirs up when one eats. It is a filling and pleasant soup.

The entrees are notable chiefly for their imaginative rice garnishes (some plates include three different preparations), which are a standard of Afghan cooking, because in many homes rice makes the bulk of the meal and meat, when available, is but an adjunct. Some dishes do feature rice as their raison d’etre , notably the yaghout challow , a sweet-sour rice cooked with cherries and garnished with the guest’s choice of lamb or beef, and the quabili palow , or saffron rice garnished with carrot strips, raisins and the same choice of meats. Many plates include a large serving of rice flavored with cardamom, a delicious spice that gets little use in the West except in Scandinavia; other plates may also include plain white basmati rice, a fine variety of grain with a nutty flavor, and spicy green rice colored with spinach.

The entree list begins with a selection of the usual kebabs--lamb, beef and chicken--that are a staple of this region’s cooking, and continues with the less-known chapli kebab, rice dishes and several curries.

The murgh (chicken) kebab had far less delicacy than it might have; when marinated overnight in spiced yogurt, then quickly grilled over glowing charcoal, this can be an exceptional dish. However, one guest declared it little different from American backyard barbecued chicken, and this description seemed largely accurate.

The chapli kebab, a dish of spiced ground beef patties that when expertly prepared can be absolutely startling in its flavor and delicacy, here tasted pretty much like onion-flavored hamburger patties cooked too close to the charcoal.

A serving of lamb curry offered relatively tender meat, but it was cooked in one large chunk attached to a large segment of bone, which made the serving unattractive. The spicing was perfunctory, and the sauce dull.

The koufteh palow , a classic dish of meatballs in sauce served with plenty of rice, seemed not far distant from the forlorn meatballs in gravy of American commercial cuisine. Chopped meat slowly kneaded by careful hands can attain a light and agreeable texture when shaped into balls; the same meat quickly compacted by a hurried or careless cook usually will resemble something picked up off a golf course.

For dessert, the Afghan infatuation with rice continues with the shir berenji , a nicely creamy, sweetly spiced rice pudding. The baklava of one visit featured soggy pastry wrapped around a filling of chopped nuts.

KHYBER PASS

4637 Convoy St.

571-3749

Dinner served nightly.

Credit cards accepted.

Dinner for two, including a glass of house wine each, tax and tip, $35 to $50.